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- This file is a list of frequently reported problems with ncurses which are
- considered bugs elsewhere or configuration problems. If you're going to
- report a bug in ncurses, you should probably look over this list first.
-
- ********
-
- If you use escape codes to configure a terminal, ncurses applications will
- just overwrite your settings when they exit.
-
- The proper way to do this is to also provide a custom terminfo type which
- sets the terminal correctly. For instance, for controlling the cursor
- shape/color/etc., change the 'cnorm' capability.
-
- ********
-
- If you hit the "Print Screen" key while in a Linux console, your current
- application will likely dump core.
-
- The kernel maps that key to ^\, which generates a SIGQUIT by default.
- There's no bug here (although why that key was chosen is unclear).
-
- ********
-
- Home/End keys don't work in some non-full-screen applications.
-
- The situation with this is somewhat complicated. For a background summary,
- see:
- http://dickey.his.com/xterm/xterm.faq.html#xterm_pc_style
- http://dickey.his.com/xterm/xterm.faq.html#xterm_arrows
-
- Essentially, the key sequences in terminfo entries (particularly khome and
- kend) are for full-screen applications only. This means that they
- are only valid after an 'smkx' sequence, to put the terminal into
- application mode. If you want to use these sequences in non-application
- mode, you need to recognize similar sequences - the versions which start
- with CSI (\E [) rather than SS3 (\E O). One example of how is in /etc/zshrc
- in recent Debian ZSH packages.
-
- ********
-
- The Debian terminfo entry for xterm doesn't work with some other xterms
-
- There's no way to win this. For a while, Debian made its xterm default to
- a terminal type of 'xterm-debian', which seemed to fix the problem. In
- that case, however, connecting to remote non-Debian machines requires you
- to change your terminal type (since there will be no entry for xterm-debian
- there). Having changed back to a default terminal type of 'xterm', when you
- sit at a non-Debian system using some other version of xterm, applications
- on the Debian system may use features not available in your current xterm.
-
- The only workaround for this problem is to set your terminal type from xterm
- to one of the feature-limited versions when you log in to a Debian system
- remotely. "xterm-r6" and the associated terminal types are appropriate for
- this.
-